Tara (00:56):
Welcome to episode 30 of the Art of Estate Planning podcast.
(01:01):
This is Tara Lucke, your host, and today we are doing something a little bit different. You might remember from our summer series, we had some of our Facebook Live conversations coming onto the podcast episode, and that's exactly what we are doing today as well because a few weeks ago we had the fabulous Kate Redman come on to the Art of Estate planning for a live presentation hosted by Carrie to talk to us all about blended families in estate planning. Now, you know how much I love a system, a rule, a checklist, and dealing with blended families kind of throws all of that out the window. It's really hard to systemize and automate and have a set in stone sort of protocol for blended families. So this is a really challenging topic and I thought Kate and Carrie shared some fabulous insights in their conversation. So Kate talks about the unique challenges that blended families bring to estate, planning some strategies available to try and create a win-win solution, as well as just general considerations to think about. I think you'll really love this conversation with Carrie Payne and Kate Redman from Kate Redman and Associates, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Kate (02:30):
So I was telling Carrie before we started, this is actually my little pet topic. I absolutely love talking about blended families in estate planning. So I, as Carrie said, I'm Kate Redman. I'm the director and principal solicitor at Kate Redman and Associates. We are a fully mobile niche, wills and estates law firm servicing Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast and occasionally down to the Gold Coast as well. So I've got myself and I have two solicitors working for me, one associate and one solicitor. And so one of my associate is up on the Sunshine Coast. My solicitor is in Brisbane with me. And so all we do is wills and estates. We don't step our toe into any other area of law because this is what we love and this is what we want to help people with the most. So the way that I've broken up this topic is starting with the planning for the possible future blending of a family and estate planning once you are in a blended family.
(03:31):
I just thought that that would be a good way to separate the topic so that you can get a bit of a feel for the difference between what can be done before and what can be done afterwards. The first level of the relationship, so planning for possible future blending is the level of the parents and then the possible future family blending at the level of adult children. So the blending at the first level of a relationship that I'm talking about is planning for the future where perhaps there's a divorce or where your parent loses their spouse because their spouse passes away. So that might be your other parents, for example, your mom passes away and then your dad repartner, and then also blending at the adult child level. So planning as a parent for the future where your child, your adult child, might have a relationship breakdown and repartner or partner with someone who already has children from a previous relationship and that sort of thing.
(04:34):
So that's the two levels of the possible future blending that I thought would be a good way to lead through this topic. So first of all, I know that this is probably old hat for a lot of listeners, but the standard will versus testamentary trust will is really important when we're talking about planning for the possible future blending of families. As you would know with a standard will, you are leaving a benefit to a beneficiary in their own name, whereas with a testamentary trust will, you're leaving the benefit to the beneficiary, but via a trust of which there is a trustee and an appointor appointed. So the protection that you get from the testamentary trust will, from the perspective of it being in the context of possible future blended family, is that if you have an adult child who has got into a relationship and then there's a relationship breakdown, if you and the other parent had already passed away and they'd received their benefit in their own name and then they had that relationship breakdown, then from a family law perspective, their inheritance is in the pot.
(05:48):
So it's in there to be considered for a property settlement in family law proceedings. There's some protection that can be afforded to that inheritance if instead of it going to the beneficiary in their own name, if it goes into a testamentary trust of which they are the beneficiary. And then we just need to be very careful that we don't accidentally create an alter ego trust. So for the purposes of family law, I like the way that I explain it to clients is that if there's a trust of which you are the trustee and the beneficiary, the family law access nice tribe, but we know it's you and they consider it an alter ego trust. Whereas if you have someone else that's appointed as the trustee and they've been very prudent and careful with how they've done those distributions to the beneficiary, there can be some protection provided by that.
(06:40):
I'm not a family lawyer, family law quite frankly scares me, but I have liaised with lots of beautiful family lawyers to talk about that side of things and to make sure that we provide as much protection as we can or mitigate the risk as much as we can. So the case studies that I've prepared for planning for the possibility of becoming a blended family or the child becoming part of a blended family is the kind of typical clients, the younger family, a couple in their thirties, the usual, everything to each other and then everything to the kids. So under a standard will, if one parent dies, the estate passes to the surviving spouse. But then as I said before, if the spouse then repartner and that relationship breaks down the inheritance from the deceased spouse forms part of the property pool for a family law property settlement, and if both parents are deceased and the inheritance passes to the children under the standard will then again the inheritance forms part of the property pool in case of their relationship breakdown in the future, something to remember is that unless the trust is wound up earlier, trusts do last for 80 years in Queensland.
(07:52):
And so it has the potential to provide those protections for generations to come depending on the wording of the testamentary trust in the will. So the solutions or the options for protecting against that possible future blended family is a testamentary trust will. So where one trust is established on the death of the first spouse, so that's to protect the inheritance of the surviving spouse and then individual trusts on the death of the second for each child or one trust for all of the children. And so that will just depend on your client's instructions and different circumstances as to whether they want just one trust for all the kids or separate trust one for each of the kids. And something to take into consideration with that as well is if there's one of the children who perhaps has a disability and it would need to become a special disability trust, then you'd want to potentially look at making that a separate trust for that beneficiary instead of it being one trust, because then you wouldn't be able to have that special disability trust because you'd have beneficiaries who are not under those disabilities.
(09:02):
So the other circumstance that is becoming unfortunately more and more common is in the case of widows and widowers. So I recently advised on a matter where there was a widower who had three adult children. All of them had limited financial means. The widow's wife had died in an accident and her estate had received a payout of compensation of several million dollars. So the widower is now dating someone new and has only spent about a hundred thousand dollars of the compensation payout. So there's still several million dollars in the estate if he passes away and he wants his estate to go to his children equal shares. So the difficulty with that is that his girlfriend could be considered his spouse for the purposes of a family provision application, so she could be eligible to make a claim for provision from his now quite hefty estate and way that could So the, there's also the potential with just their relationship breakdown if they were to break up that now this quite large inheritance is in the pot for that family law property settlement.
(10:20):
So there's the need potentially for the widow to get some advice on a binding financial agreement from a family lawyer, but there's no guarantee that the girlfriend would agree to enter into that with him. So the way that, again, that could have been managed differently is instead of the wife who had passed away, instead of her having a standard will where she'd left everything to her husband in his own name, it could have been a testamentary trust will, and so then it would've had that protection and it would've also had some nice, potentially, I'm not an accountant, but I could have had some nice tax benefits for him as well to have that money in a trust of which he's a beneficiary instead of it going directly to him. There's some things that can be done to limit the prospects of success of a claim by the girlfriend if this gentleman then did pass away so he could create a discretionary trust to hold the funds and assets, of course there'd be potential duty and tax implications of transferring assets to a discretionary trust and making his children the beneficiaries and only his children the beneficiaries.
(11:35):
And the other option to limit the prospects of success of a claim by the girlfriend under a family provision application is that he could create investment bonds for each child. Investment bonds are something that I think are really appreciated in the estate planning space, and I get very excited about them. There's something that you will need to, or I recommend liaising with a financial advisor about, and something that I really love about my firm is that we place huge significance on our relationships with financial advisors and accountants to make sure that we can have the best people for the job at hand. So an investment bond sits outside of the estate and it is a sum of money that can be accessed by the person who makes the bond, the owner of the bond during their lifetime. So they can still have access to the funds if needed, but they can name a successor for the bond, the investment bond.
(12:35):
And after, I believe, and a financial advisor, if there's one in the group today can call me out on this, but I believe that after 10 years there's no CDT attached to the investment bonds if they're cashed out. But I could be wrong, that's usually when I phone a friend and find a financial advisor to clarify that. But the investment bond in that way means that you don't have the situation where the person has to completely lose access to the money and just give it straight to the beneficiary. They can still have access to the funds, but there's already succession in place with the investment bond that keeps that money out of the estate, make sure it goes directly to the person it's intended to go to, and then that would then be limiting the size of the estate from which in this case, the girlfriend could make a claim.
(13:30):
So what I always say to clients is, you can't stop an eligible applicant from making a claim for further provision from your estate. If their spouse, child financial dependent, or someone with whom the deceased was in an interdependent financial relationship, then they're eligible to make a claim. But what you can do is make it a bad idea for them to do so by making the estate as small as possible. And so that's when we get into what I call defensive estate planning. So in this case, there's the possibility for those investment bonds. Something that is also I think a little bit overlooked, but it can have some tax implications, is the possibility of just creating joint bank accounts. It does require a level of trust between the will makers or the test data and their child that they're having the joint bank account with. But that can be another way to make sure that those funds don't form part of the estate and just pass outside of the estate directly to that child.
(14:28):
There is obviously the risk that the child would just drain the bank account the day that they were made a joint account holder on it and skip off into the sunset. But that is another possibility. The investment bonds though, is a way to get rid of the risk of the beneficiary, just grabbing the money and running with it, keeping the money out of the estate, and also creating a little bit of a more tax friendly vehicle for holding that money. But again, financial advisors are better versed in that than I am. So that's where I bring in those wonderful people.
Carrie (15:04):
Kate, I'm just giving a breather there for us. For those that are listening, we do have a previous Facebook live on investment bonds as well, so specifically on this topic. So for those that want to deep dive into those, have a look under the guides tab on our Facebook group, you'll be able to find it. And Kate's absolutely right, we love working with our financial planning and accounting teams in relation to those. Kate, sorry, I'll let you go on. I know where obviously you and I both are in Queensland, so we are talking about this from a sort of a Queensland perspective, but there are a lot of our beloved community suffering in New South Wales and then notional estate, social estate,
Kate (15:44):
I don't like power to you. It would suck so much of the fun out of defensive estate planning to be doing this in New South Wales.
Carrie (15:51):
And I like that term defensive estate planning. It sounds like we need a shield, but I think the joke I usually make is sell all your assets or give away all your assets or move to a better state. But I think that for those listening, what I just wanted to make really clear is that obviously these strategies, these defensive strategies are wonderful except if you're in New South Wales and there's a nexus to New South Wales.
Kate (16:16):
Yes. But speaking of just give away the family from Palm, divest yourself and run off into the sunset, something that is, I think a really big hole that you need to make sure that you don't fall into is accidentally impacting on people's aged care pensions. So for example, that's when a granny flat agreement can come into play as an estate planning strategy. So for example, I had a client recently where there were two children. One of the children was estranged from the parents. The other had been taking care of the parents for most of her adult life and was very close with them, and they wanted to limit the size of their estate by, oh, sorry, this is off topic because this isn't about blended families. But anyway, you just have to make sure that you don't accidentally transfer the principal place of residence straight into the name of the beneficiary. And then we've got nana without her age pension again, sorry, that's another topic.
Carrie (17:18):
When we're talking about those divesting of assets, whether it be through those joint bank account transfers, and Denise, the member of our community, has made a really good point. You can always create a joint account that requires two signatories, a way to get around that. But I always think about, and this might just be the absolute wet rag of a person that I am, but making sure when we're estate planning lawyers to very clear on our scope of work about what we're advising on because joint assets aren't protected from things like bankruptcy events. If we are transferring money into the name of a child, do we know what that person, that child's financial situation is? Are we basically putting it into a steaming pot of insolvency? So I think.
Kate (18:02):
And are we accidentally triggering a tax event by transferring them quite a large sum of money? So that's the kind of thing where I always say to clients, you can have any, well within the law, you can have anything you want, but how badly do you want it? What do you want to risk for it, and what are you willing to pay for it?
Carrie (18:18):
Yeah, absolutely. I like that. Yep. So yeah, I think just making sure that when you're going talking about divesting of assets, we're very clear on what we're advising on.
Kate (18:27):
Yes, absolutely. And definitely getting financial advice. This is why I love having just these fantastic financial advisors that I've literally called one during a consult with a client. I've been in an appointment, there's been a financial advice question. I've called this financial advisor who's my phone a friend, and he's given me the answer on the spot. It's just one of those things where I think that it's so important to have those links with other industry professionals. It's funny what you say about having two signatories on the account. I'm so jaded, I'm so cynical. One thing that I would just say is in the era of internet banking, it'd be pretty easy to grab Nana's phone and just authorise the payment as the second signatory. But I think that's just all my community legal service experience talking. It's pretty horrible what some people get up to.
(19:23):
So again, case by case basis advice with outlining risks, costs, all of that sort of thing. So going on planning for estate planning once you are in a blended family. So it's hard to, there's no way to give a blanket rule, right? Because there's a blended family where it's, my dad married the evil stepmother who is spending all of my inheritance that my siblings and I really needed, and she's only after him for his money and she's 50 years younger than him and blah, blah, blah. There's that kind of stereotype of blended family. And then over here, dad's been with his defacto Susan for 20 years, and she's known me since I was 10 years old, and I love her as if she were my mom. So if it's at all possible to keep things friendly, that's where we're getting into. There was that recent article about if you are going to estate litigation, you're pretty much never going to have Christmas dinner together again.
(20:34):
And what we're wanting to do from an estate planning point of view is if it is possible to keep things friendly and to keep those conversations on a sort of even keel, then that's always a nice thing to do. But if we get into the land of mitigating the risk of challenges happening, then that's something that also needs to be thought about. And because we're lawyers, we're estate planning lawyers, it's all very well and good to tell people to keep things friendly. But if they're coming to you and they're wanting serious advice about estate planning for their blended family, odds on, there's perhaps some spicy elements in there. So going on to mitigating the risk of challenges, I cannot emphasise enough the importance of having an up-to-date superannuation buying death benefit nomination. And I'll tell you why. So a few years ago, I had a client come to me, was the adult son of a gentleman who had passed away the gentleman.
(21:36):
So the client was the son from when his father had had a teenage dalliance with a lady, and then they had not stayed together, the parents had not stayed together, and his father had then gone on and much later Repartnered had three little kids and his wife. So when he passed away, he left a wife and three young children. There was a standard will that left everything to his wife. That's all very well and good. The house was owned as joint tenants, so it passed outside of the estate. There was a life insurance policy in favour of the wife happy days, but the BDBN had lapsed four years prior to death. So the estate otherwise would've consisted of about a thousand dollars because all the other bank accounts were jointly held. But because there wasn't a valid binding death benefit nomination, it then left it up to the trustee's discretion as to who to pay the super to.
(22:26):
So there was the possibility there. The window opened for the adult son to apply to the super fund for the death benefit to either partially or fully be paid to him. So to make sure that those windows stay closed. If it's a super fund where they're lapsing buying death benefit nominations, then you really need to stay on top of that for making sure that those B two bns stay up to date because it's binding on the trustees if it's properly completed, properly filled out and signed and witnessed and meets all the criteria. But without that in place, it can be instructive for the trustees, but they don't have to. They're not bound to follow it. So that can leave the door open when it is a blended family situation, and that's a risk that needs to be mitigated. se, testamentary Trusts the Essential Guide.
(24:22):
So that was the forgotten son, the forever stepsister has been a really interesting one. So I had a matter a little while ago where the deceased and his wife were married. She had had a daughter from a previous relationship. His wife had passed away decades ago, like 30 years ago. But because they hadn't divorced before she passed away, her daughter remains the stepsister of his kids. So that's, again, that's something that perhaps wouldn't have been as much of an issue, but for the fact that he passed away without a will. So he died in test state. And so under the rules of intestacy, the stepsister is a beneficiary just like his biological children. So that's another thing to keep in mind with thinking about the blended family situation, is that you can't unco an egg to a certain extent once you've got that blended family there if there's no divorce.
(25:28):
And then if someone then passes away in this situation, then you've still got this lady who's still a stepsister, so still a child for the purposes of the succession act. And so still a beneficiary, which again, I don't think I need to telescope the importance of having a will, but that was another time when it just really drove home the importance to me and something to tell clients that if, for example, this gentleman had made a will and he had left out the stepsister and just left his estate to his biological children, then she would've had to make a family provision application in order to be able to get a benefit from the estate. But because he didn't have a will at all, she's by default a beneficiary. And so now we're in the position of having to look at whether she might not go ahead with being a beneficiary, whether she'd renounce her entitlement, all of that sort of thing.
(26:22):
So that was just the other point that I think it surprises people a lot that our definition and succession law of what is a child seems to be becoming a looser and looser interpretation of the word in the traditional sense. I mean, we've got stepchildren, our children, defactos children, our children. There's just all these different ways that someone can be eligible as a family provision applicant. And so that's the sort of thing that I keep in the back of my mind when advising blended families on how to structure their estate plan. So that was all that I wanted to really cover off on those case studies. Did we have any questions, Carrie?
Carrie (27:12):
We've got a question here from Sally Ann. She said in Queensland I thought stepchildren aren't included in tester supervisions, but they're eligible to make an FPA claim. I think that's correct that they're eligible obviously from a state by state perspective. I know I think for example, new South Wales is, how would you say, I think they're not included in the FPA claim provisions. They've got approved dependency. If anyone's listening and they're from New South Wales, please type into the comments. Yes, correct. Yep. Someone said here, needing to prove dependency. So I think that's sort of point there is that obviously they're treated differently from state to state. We've got Angie who's made a good point here about the divesting of assets. So we talked before about the divesting of assets being something that is important to consider from a bankruptcy perspective, but also from a family law perspective. So if you're giving your asset to a child and they're in a relationship, if that relationship breaks down, is that asset then sort of in that pool as well? So definitely we've got to be making sure we're really clear on what we're giving advice about in that regard as well.
Kate (28:22):
And that's how I've seen more people become more and more interested in testamentary trust. Wills is actually, once you bring up your marriage might be lovely and fine, but it's only two years to be considered a defacto for your kids. What if as soon as they turn 19, if you've already passed away and then they get into a defacto relationship for two years? I mean, if anyone, I think a lot of people wouldn't want to be held to their relationship decisions that they made when they were a young adult and the impacts that that can potentially have.
Carrie (28:54):
Yeah, I'm aware we've got a bit of extra time, so please feel free to throw your questions in if you've got any, Kate, well, I've got you maybe operating this as a bit more of a chance to have a chat about all things blended family. One of my favourite quotes from a client is they'll come to you and they'll be like, oh, our circumstances are simple, and then they've got kids coming out of the trees from different relationships. I mean, how do you personally help guide that discussion into the right direction with clients that are very kind of fixated on this? No, no. We've got a really simple family structure.
Kate (29:32):
I find that that actually sees itself out the door. That notion of a simple will once you start asking questions, because the number one question that people are not prepared for when they start thinking about estate planning is gift over provisions. So they are not prepared for, okay, so you've got Tom, Susan, and Matthew as your three kids. Okay, but if Matthew had already predeceased you, but he had kids, would you like his shared a pass to his kids or to his siblings? What if Matthew has kids with someone who you don't particularly like? Are you happy for that money to not only go to his kids, but possibly be managed by that other parent as the guardian of the minor? Or would you like to include a provision that the executor has to hold those ones on trust for those kids? So that's again, getting into the blended families as well.
(30:25):
It's the definition of a child and a dependent and who would actually be considered a child for the purposes of that gifting over provision as well that you would want to be talking through with a client very clearly. And gift over provision is really interesting. I love the asking the gift over provision question because I can never pick it. So some clients will be like, absolutely not a question. Gift over provision applies. It would pass to my grandchildren. Not a question, but someone else perhaps in a couple, one of them says, oh yeah, to go to the grandkids. And the other one's like, have you seen who their parent is? They just waste the money. And it's like, oh, okay, hold on a minute. We've just got to backtrack a little bit here. So that I think is the biggest way that we see that there's no such thing as just a simple willm or a simple setup because it's the gift of provision and the looking at, okay, this is now, but so potentially we'd love it if people update their will every three to five years.
(31:28):
Chef's kiss perfect, but that doesn't always happen. I've currently got a matter where the beneficiary thought that the lady passed away and test dated in 2024, advertised for letters of admin, oh, look, she has got a will, but it's from 1982. So I want to make your will based on today, but also based on what may come, and then also remind you to update it in between. So that's the way that I present it to clients, and that's how I make sure that they turn their mind to, it's simple now, but it could become complex and what would it mean if it became complex in this way and this way and this way, and how do we protect against that?
Carrie (32:12):
Yeah. We've got a couple of questions come through. We see a lot in the space around blended families, one of the spouses giving the surviving spouse just a right to occupy a life interest in the primary residence with the residue or the underlying beneficial ownership going to their respected children. What are your thoughts on that strategy and what can go wrong?
Kate (32:36):
I think what can go wrong absolutely is lack of clarity as to who pays for what and what is included in that. So there was a case that came out last year where it was actually one of the children of the deceased who was granted a life interest, and it got down in court, it got down to you are meant to pay for the pool maintenance. No, the estates meant to you personally are meant to pay for the pool maintenance. No, no, no. The estate is meant to pay for the pool maintenance. No, no, it's this cause in the world. So it's just, I think the biggest time when it can go wrong from just a baseline perspective is who is responsible for paying for? What does that include? What does that not include? Where is the money coming from? Is also one to keep in mind if you're granting someone a life interest and you're wanting all the maintenance of the property to be paid for from the estate, but there's actually no money there apart from this property that they've got the life interest in, that's something to keep in mind.
(33:34):
Also, whether or not the life interest is portable. I mean, you can have someone pass away and they've granted a life interest to their spouse, and it's a three story house with stairs for days, but that's perhaps not the right environment to be ageing in place. And would it be better if that life interest was portable and could go to another property where that person could age in place? So that's the kind of thing to be, I think, keeping in mind, and it's again, it's like what works now, but what works in the future? What complexity could come into the mix?
(34:06):
And I'd also just be mindful of the ongoing link that you've got there, beneficiaries who will ultimately inherit the property, potentially breathing down the neck of this person, got the life interest in the property. Does that make sense? Is that something that is going to be a harmonious relationship, or are you going to end up in the Supreme Court having a fight about pool maintenance? So I think it's a very case by case basis, but it's all about the drafting. It's all about the forward thinking and about getting the client to think through, okay, what does that look like if you had it that you had the life interest to? I've had clients sometimes want to because they own, so there's a de facto wife, de facto husband. They own a property as tenants in common because he's got kids from a previous relationship, and so there's the life interest for her to continue living at the property.
(35:09):
But then if the house is sold, then that share of the property goes to his kids, and so it's his kids. There's the life interest on his share of the property for her to continue living in the property, but then his kids are the ultimate beneficiaries of that share of the property. And then it's like, well, do you really want your de facto why and your three kids owning a property together, is that something that makes practical and emotional sense? So I think it's just about really talking through all those different options, making sure that you get into the nitty gritty of how this life interest or retro ZTE is drafted and thinking about those practical implications as well.
Carrie (35:49):
Yeah, yeah. There's a comment here from one of our community members. Angie and I certainly have seen this similar. Often, those life interests and right to occupies play out very poorly practically. But really if the relationship between the children of the deceased and the stepparent or the spouse of the deceased isn't very good, and I've certainly seen them unwound in family provision applications, I think what we're seeing in a lot of those instances is a real focus on what the needs of the beneficiaries are as well. If all you've left your surviving spouse is a right to reside in the property, that doesn't really kind of equate to much.
Kate (36:32):
Absolutely. And especially if there's no money to be funding the ongoing maintenance of this potentially large property, it's like, yeah, that's great, but who's paying for the garden maintenance now that Shirley's 78 years old?
Carrie (36:45):
How does that invade across into aged care as well? Where (exactly) real obligation to take care of your spouse? So...
Kate (36:53):
I think it's about turning your mind to the, well, for me, it's always about turning my mind to the practicality. Imagine it in your head, how will this play out? What will this look like? So yeah, I think Angie was making the same point I made about the beneficiaries breathing down someone's neck about the property that's eventually going to belong to the beneficiaries, but it's got the life interest. I mean, it would feel like having the worst landlord in the world, I imagine.
Carrie (37:18):
I don't know. There's some mad ones out there. Kate, we've also got a question here about whether you have you mutual wills before?
Kate (37:28):
I personally don't do mutual wills. I'm more than happy to refer anyone on who would like a mutual will. The reason why is it comes back to practicality for me as well, because to me, I just think if, so, you've got a mutual will, you've got a contract in place and that's great, that's wonderful. But if it's at the point where someone has gone off and made a new will, then challenging that is really costly, and I'd rather just advise people to think about how to do it, structure it in a way that would make sense without a mutual will, but that's just a personal view. It's like how I also don't do cortisols to wills because I've just seen them go wrong too many times. So it's just personal preference
Carrie (38:13):
For those that are listening as well and want to know more about mutual wills. I think Brian Mitchell from Mitchell Solicitors came on and did a Facebook live with us last year around September about mutual wills. So for those that are interested in that, that is something I actually don't do them myself for very similar reasons. Kate, and being trained by the best Tara, I sort of prescribed to the gospel according to Tara Lucke right away. There's a lot of us in here, but I actually think that those mutual wills are going to be, we're going to see more and more of them given the increase in blended family numbers and the increase in wealth that is going around. So if you're interested in mutual wills, now might be the time to get on and have a look at them. But I think you're right, Kate. I think it makes my God, that's right. But is that because we haven't done many of them? I don't know.
Kate (39:13):
I've seen them though, and I've administered them and all of that sort of thing. So I have seen them. They give me the ick, the personal preference.
Carrie (39:22):
It's a vibe as the kids say, or it's not a vibe, isn't it? The opposite, not a line. But certainly I think, as I said, even though there are a lot of practitioners out there that don't do them, I think where there's, in fact, it's people less do them. I think we're going to see more of them in the future because these issues we're having with balancing flexibility and certainty with blended families, is it only going to get more difficult?
Kate (39:48):
We're going to see so many more of my absolute nightmare. Well, actually, no. I have a list of nightmares in estate planning. Every player wins a prize. I appoint all five of my children jointly as executor, but then also I leave my property as tenancy common to my five children. Really? Can you not?
Carrie (40:10):
I can't agree with one person, let alone four others. Tara's just said here, she feels that an easy solution in the short term for achieving the client's objectives with the mutual wills. But I totally agree, them being a mine fell long term. So again, gospel according to Tara. So we're on the same team.
Kate (40:29):
Long-term practical thinking.
Carrie (40:31):
I think I was in preparation for something else. I was listening to a few podcasts this morning about succession planning, and they were talking about this concept of what is a legacy and what are you leaving behind? And I think we're so focused when we talk about what we are leaving behind, we focus on the assets. But I can absolutely tell you from both personal and professional experience, when we have a family scenario, particularly a blended family scenario, the legacy is about the relationships you're leaving behind, not the assets. So if your plan is going to cook the books totally in a way that these people aren't going to get along and you're going to create a nightmare, it's just nobody wins.
Kate (41:12):
I've had test data saying that they're going to win because they're like, ha ha, I won't be there to deal with this mess. But it's like, huh!
Carrie (41:19):
Oh, that's right. I think that when we talk about the whole concept of legacy planning, estate planning, succession planning, what we're trying to leave behind is happy people. We're not trying to leave miserable people behind because long the money's gone, the people are still there. So making sure that whatever your plan is for your blended family, letting those people go off and live their life in a way that is harmonious, whether it be with each other or other people, I don't mind. But certainly that's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to set people up for success.
